Ontology
by Laryna6
Summary: Henry wakes in the Digital World. Those programs didn't uninstall themselves. Giftfic for The Light's Refrain.


_For The Light's Refrain, in thanks for betaing help! They gave me three possible prompts._

* * *

The sound of weirdly familiar squeaks and crooning made Henry wince. ' _Five more minutes,'_ he opened his mouth to say, but it turned into an, "Ow _,_ " when he felt something digging into his back.

Rolling over just left him with even _more_ uncomfortable things digging into his side.

Groaning in complaint, he managed to open his eyes a slit, but saw nothing but a blur. He let them slip closed again, tired, but that brought the uncomfortable rocks or something back to his attention. He reached around with a hand, seeing if he could lever himself up. "Suzy, what did I say about leaving your toys in my room?" he mumbled unintelligibly.

He must have rolled out of bed and run into some blocks or something, he thought, rubbing his eyes with his elbow once he was sitting up. Still drowsy, he opened his eyes to find his bed and get back in it.

Past the Diginomes, there was a hole in the sky.

The shock of adrenaline should have wiped sleepiness from his system, but he still felt dead tired, limbs heavy and leaden. "That's, that's Juggernaut!"

Next to it, a slash of pixels through the sky – a data stream? "The digital world? What am I doing in the Digital World?" He let out a laugh, "Not that I'm complaining," when he spent so long trying to find a way to get to Terriermon, but… "Terriermon?"

In the Digital World, good. In the Digital World without a Digimon, _bad_. The fact he and Takato were able to breathe water meant he might be able to affect the digital world around him enough for some basic self-defense. That biomerge digivolution experience might come in handy. Takato had screamed in order to bolster Guilmon's power that time, as a martial artist Henry had studied techniques for that kind of focus.

Wait, that wasn't the point! He wouldn't be fighting Digimon by himself if he could find Terriermon. "Hey, little guys," he said, smiling at the digignomes. "Do you know where I can find Terriermon?"

One of them trilled, and the group of them started to fly off. "I guess that's a yes," he said, cheered up, and managed to push himself to his feet. "If I'm data in the Digital World, maybe I can will myself less tired?" They hadn't needed to eat while they were here, but they had needed to sleep. Even Ryo had slept, and he was the one who pointed out that they didn't need to eat.

He looked up: Juggernaut was still there, and he couldn't see the ball of the human world past it. "Wait," he wondered. "Is it following me?" Hovering over him? "Did Yamaki do something so we could get to the Digital World?" It didn't look like Juggernaut was sucking up Digimon, and the digignomes didn't seem worried. "Did I hit my head when I landed, that's what I should be asking," he said, rubbing the side of his head experimentally. "What was I doing last before I ended up here? I don't remember my dad saying anything about a breakthrough, but he might not want to tell me. Not when Suzy might find out," and be reminded that Daddy had separated her from Terriermon. She'd want to be the first to go through, if Juggernaut was turned into a portal.

Henry was just glad he was here instead of her. He didn't want his little sister wandering around the Digital World alone, _again_. "Well, I've got the digignomes…"

Which suddenly squeaked and started flying back past him the other way. "I think that's my cue to run!"

"You're not getting away!" a voice roared.

That wasn't enough reason for him to stop running, Henry thought… but a Gigadramon flying overhead to coil in front of him was a good reason to scramble to a halt.

"Where's your partner, human?"

"Not here!" Which meant that this Gigadramon couldn't absorb Terriermon's data to try to get to the human world, but it also meant he wasn't here to help get Henry out of this.

"Not _here_ , but somewhere? If you already have a partner, then you can't be mine… but it means that all I have to do is wait." A three-part steel claw reached down to grab him.

"Oh no you don't!" Henry said, for the sake of focus an intimidation, as he pushed at the digital world around him. ' _Come on, come on, if electronics can stay dry, then there's got to be something to keep a Digimon from touching and interacting with me…'_

Juggernaut's funnel roaring to life overhead he hadn't expected.

A Digimon getting sucked into the air and exploding into data shouldn't have given him the phantom sensation of his teeth taking a bite off an apple.

"I did _that?"_ he wondered, staring upwards with wide eyes. "Wait, _I_ did that?" That hadn't felt as though he'd made Juggernaut something, even though that would have made sense, for a program Yamaki made to protect a human in the Digital World.

That felt like when Henry himself landed a punch.

The program placed within Terriermon. The red card.

Vaguely, Henry wondered if it was weird that he wasn't angry at his dad. Well. Not any angrier. This wasn't really anything extra, compared to what he'd done to them and Terriermon without informing them.

Experimentally, he reached an open-palmed hand into the air and focused on closing it: not turning it into a fist, a weapon, but closing something off.

The hole in the sky looked gone, but he could still feel it there, ready to be opened again.

"Well," he said, and tried to laugh. "At least now I know how I'm getting home." Huh. "I wonder if I can just open a wormhole to wherever Terriermon is?"

* * *

"I'm a terrible father."

"No, you're not." That was the thing to say, right? And Janyu Wong _wasn't,_ or at least he tried not to be and that probably counted for something? Not that Yamaki had any idea about it. "Have a bagel, you need to eat something," he said, eyes alighting gratefully on a distraction.

"This is the second time one of my children vanished into the Digital World right in front of me."

"With my program."

"But it was my plan-"

This was probably insensitive, so he hesitated a moment, but "Look, Janyu. Right now, Henry needs you."

"You're right," Janyu said, taking a deep breath. "Thanks, Mitsuo."

* * *

 _Yamaki is just 'he is a reality warper who killed a god, Janyu: he'll be_ fine.'

 _This particular request was for side effects of what was done to Henry and Terriermon to fight Juggernaut._


End file.
